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Barney's Blog

Fortran Father Passes

The man who invented Fortran
– and, in the process, laid the foundation for much of what we now take
for granted in computer programming -- passed
away at the age of 82. John Backus developed Fortran for IBM out of frustration
with all the low-level work required at the time to program.

For many in the science community, Fortran is alive and well, just as Cobol
is in mainframe business computing.